Ricardo’s car was found a few days later in Segovia,
about forty miles from Madrid. Wilson and Bakarian’s rented car showed exactly
double that mileage used, which made sense, but the investigation got no
farther than that, so I returned to Buenos Aires.

Chapter 8

Fifteen years later.

Marvin Jacks had bought a house in the town of Florida
– accent on the “i” in Spanish – which was really no more than a suburb of
Buenos Aires. Theoretically he was now Director of Fraud Detection for the
whole Western Hemisphere, but there was an Assistant Director in Miami who
handled most of the North American cases, and reported to Jacks in Buenos Aires
instead of directly to Geneva. Jacks had fought tooth and nail to avoid being
moved to head office, claiming he could do the job better in the field, which
was certainly true. Finally it came down to a dual between him and the Finance
Director, whose idea of efficiency was to move everyone to head office and let
them perform their miracles with modern communications technology. Jacks
finally won by getting the support of the president of the national carrier,
Argentine Airlines, a general who owed him a favor. That particular officer is
still in jail for human rights abuses, so it wouldn’t be politic to mention his
name or the favor here. The Director General of IATA personally overruled the
Finance Director, whom he hated, after receiving a telephone call from the
general, during which he, the general, said Marvin Jacks’ continued presence in
Buenos Aires was essential to the survival of the airline industry – or words
to that effect. Argentine generals are known to exaggerate.

Florida
was essentially a German town, that is, originally settled by German immigrants
at the beginning of the twentieth century. The Second World War saw an influx
of Germans, war veterans who had no wish to live in a destroyed Germany, Nazis,
a few Socialists who had somehow survived the Third Reich, and some Jews who
couldn’t get into Israel because of the British blockade. There had been Jews
among the original settlers, so it wasn’t unnatural that these
post-concentration camp German Jews also inclined towards Florida, although the
majority settled in Buenos Aires itself.

All
that didn’t interest Marvin Jacks. He liked the place because it was clean and,
at the time, property was relatively cheap there. Most of his time was spent
traveling, but when he was in Buenos Aries at least he had a quiet place to
sleep and restful weekends with a pool and plenty of sun. We must admit that
women occasionally served to assuage his solitude. They were mostly airline
employees, at that time called stewardesses rather than the politically correct
“flight attendants”, or the more grounded airport personnel. None became
permanent, perhaps because Marvin Jacks wasn’t, somehow, permanent himself.
This is not mere background material, because Florida has much to do with our
story.

For
public relations purposes airlines often gave cocktail parties, each company at
least once a year, which meant an average of two a month. As the IATA
representative, Jacks was always invited. Sometime he went, sometimes he
didn’t. He was also invited to lunch, something he couldn’t refuse, although
such invitations were seldom repeated because he never invited back. IATA had no
budget for such things and he wasn’t selling anything anyway. The airline
managers invited him in order to stay on his good side and, if possible, to
obtain information. They received none, but Jacks did, and that was his main
reason for accepting. The food didn’t interest him, it never did, but the wine,
dessert and a good after-lunch Cuban cigar made everything bearable.

And
that brings us to Freddy Hussein. Freddy was the Lebanese General Sales Agent
for LAN Chile. An unusual position, because LAN had its own ticket office and
Chilean manager. Why, then, did they need a General Sales Agent as well? GSAs
normally existed when the airline didn’t have its own sales office. The reason,
it was generally assumed, was that LAN wanted Freddy because he was a good
salesman, but couldn’t very well have a non-Chilean as manager. Marvin Jacks
didn’t buy that, but didn’t care because LAN Chile was not an important player
in the market. He wondered though, how a Lebanese who didn’t even speak Spanish
could be a good salesman in a Spanish-speaking country, and decided it had
something to do with politics. For some reason they wanted to legally give
Freddy a percentage of sales. That was when the Marxist Salvador Allende was
president of Chile and anything was possible. It didn’t occur to Jacks at first
that Freddy Hussein was a spy.

Freddy
often phoned Jacks asking for interpretations of IATA rules, thereby admitting
that he didn’t know much about the business. He also invited him to lunch every
time he called. Jacks begged off with invented excuses, something he couldn’t
do when an important airline manager was doing the inviting. Finally, at an Air
France cocktail party, Freddy insisted so much that Jacks agreed.

There’s
an excellent German restaurant in Florida,” he said. “Do you like German food?”

Marvin
Jacks didn’t particularly like German food, pastries yes, but the fact that
Freddy Hussein was inviting him to lunch in Florida caused him to put down his
martini unfinished in order to be alert. Did Freddy know he lived in Florida?
He hadn’t told any business associates, never gave out his home telephone
number. Before he could think of a reply though, Freddy was telling him that he
would pick him up at his office at twelve-thirty the next day. “It’s only
fifteen minutes to Florida by car,” he said, as if Jacks didn’t know. So maybe
he wasn’t aware that Jacks lived there.

Next
day the phone rang at 12:25. Freddy Hussein’s secretary: “Mr. Hussein is
leaving now, Mr. Jacks. He asks if you can wait downstairs so he won’t lose
time parking.”

A
new, chauffeur-driven Mercedes Benz. Freddy Hussein did okay for the GSA of a
third world airline. That was just one of the thoughts that ran through Marvin
Jacks’ head as Freddy talked incessantly on the way to the restaurant “Die
Glocke” in Florida. The chauffeur dropped them off at the entrance on Florida’s
main drag and disappeared. The restaurant was small but well appointed. About
twenty tables, each with fresh, real flowers in expensive-looking vases on
them. An aging, white clad, bow-tied waiter with a German accent greeted them
at the door, Jacks in Spanish, then, to Hussein in German: “So nice to see you
again, Herr Hussein. I will tell Frau Marie that you are here.” He seated them
at a corner table. Jacks’ instinct told him to keep his back to the wall, but
the waiter was holding the back-to-the-door chair for him. Freddy Hussein, it
seemed, had similar instincts. The waiter recommended Eisbein, the
specialty of the day, which Hussein accepted but Jacks passed on and selected Grüne
Sosse, a Frankfurt specialty consisting of potatoes covered in herb sauce.

Do
you prefer German or Argentine wine, Mr. Jacks?” Hussein asked.

“Argentine,
no contest.”

Hussein
laughed. “A wise choice.”

“You
speak German, Mr. Hussein?”

“Not
really. Heinz greets all the guests in German, for atmosphere you know, like
the waiters in Italian restaurants always say Bon giorno. Your Spanish
seems excellent, I wish I could get the hang of it.”

“Well,
I’ve been here a long time.”

“So I’ve
heard,” Hussein said. “Isn’t that unusual? Foreign managers are usually
transferred on after a few years.”

“Just
fate I guess.”

Hussein
laughed his high-pitched, hyena laugh. “Fate, yes, a wonderful thing. Do you
think it exists?”

“I
don’t know, but at least it provides answers to the imponderables of
life.”

“That’s
interesting. I’ve often wondered if what I do is really determined by me
or…well…fate. Did you ever ask yourself that question, Mr. Jacks?”

Marvin
Jacks had asked himself just that many times, but he wasn’t about to get
personal with Freddy Hussein. “No,” he said. With his back to the restaurant
floor, he didn’t hear her approach. Hussein looked up from Jack’s gaze and
smiled: “Ah, Frau Marie. He jumped up and held out the chair between him and
Jacks, who stood up for the coming introduction.

“Frau
Marie, may I present my colleague, Mr. Marvin Jacks, a very important person in
the airline business.” She turned her smile to Jacks and it froze. Her hand was
out to be shook but Jacks didn’t take it until Freddy Hussein, as an
afterthought, said, “Mr. Jacks, this is Frau Marie, the owner of this wonderful
eatery and wife of the best chef in Buenos Aires, which means of course in
Argentina.” Jacks took her hand, but couldn’t say a word, his head was
whirling. Nor did she. “Please sit with us a moment, Frau Marie,” Hussein said.
If he wondered why they were staring at each other without a word, he may have
attributed it to hormonal fascination, for Frau Marie was indeed beautiful.

Hussein
snapped his fingers for Heinz, the waiter, and asked him to bring another wine
glass, then, when it arrived, proposed a toast: “To a meeting of cultures.”
Marvin Jacks and Frau Marie, once know as Rachel Baumgartner and somewhat later
as Annaliese Cornelius, drank considerably more than the traditional sip.
Freddy Hussein was finding it hard keeping up three sides of the conversation,
so decided to force participation. “Mr. Jacks is American but has been in
Argentina a long time, isn’t it so, Mr. Jacks?”

“Yes,
quite a long time,” Jacks mumbled.

“Oh?
How long?” Frau Marie asked, just to say something.

“On
and off, a total of about twenty years.”

“You
must like it here then.”

“One
gets used to it. How about you?”

She
smiled for the first time. “On and off about twelve years. We came here fifteen
years ago, but those were difficult times, you know, so we went back to Germany
after a while. We earned some money there and came back with the idea of
opening a restaurant. And well, we did.” It was like a script she had often
repeated.

“We?”
Jacks said.

“My
husband Karl-Heinz and I. He learned to cook in Germany.”

As
though on cue, Karl-Heinz appeared at their table and greeted them with a
slight bow in broken Spanish, and rushed back to the kitchen. Jacks had seen
Lt. Cornelius through the one-way interrogation-room window at Camp King, but
Cornelius, if he had ever seen Jacks at all, it was only as another soldier
walking around the camp. Jacks wondered if he had heard his name.

Even
before the food arrived, Freddy Hussein’s chauffer came rushing in and said
something to him on Arabic. “Oh, dear, isn’t this awful,” Hussein said,
standing up. “A crisis has arisen and I must go immediately. Most unfortunate,
my deepest apologies, Mr. Jacks. Frau Marie, could you be so kind as to
entertain my guest?” He scurried out. Jacks finished off his second glass of
wine and said, “Okay, so what the hell is going on, Annaliese?”